Recollections of wartime factory work as a woman.

'Bombs to be dropped right there and then’

Anne was 21 years old and employed at a hotel in Epping when war was declared in 1939. She clearly recalls the first day of the war, ‘the host had got all the staff gathered together to listen to the broadcast and when I heard it I was absolutely terrified. I was shaking and I was expecting bombs to be dropped right there and then.’

A bubble for a spirit level

Eventually Anne was conscripted to do war work and begun work in a factory in Birmingham. Employed in the tool room, many of the men at the factory objected to her presence. It was not until several months into her work that she was allowed to carry out her duties without a supervisor present. The men in the factory often played tricks on her, ‘I was told that I needed...a bubble for a spirit level and that I would have to go to the stores and get one. When I went there I was told that they didn’t have them and I was passed on to somebody else and this went on a couple of times and I realised that I – that the men were just having me on.’

A place to sleep

Anne remembers how suitable accommodation was hard to come by:

‘I used to share a bed with two other girls and we worked alternate shifts. They were on days, I was night etc. and the bed was never aired, not until the weekend when the three of us would be together. Even when I went into the other digs I had to share the bed with – the couple who owned the house – with their daughter, which I didn’t really like.’

No war no job?

After some time Anne left the factory to start work as a signal woman on the railway near Stockton. Although she enjoyed the job, she was made redundant when the war finished. She recalls how ‘the jobs that I had during the war was of no help to me in civilian life.’ Once the war ended she retrained as a secretary.